I’m very pleased to announce the release of my second full-length novel, AETHERIA’S DAEMON, an epic fantasy of 155,000 words.

First up, the goods. Here’s the cover:

The book takes place in the world of Aetheria, where a thought can conjure any object into existence—temporarily, at least—and humans are ageless. New people appear seemingly at random, and no one knows exactly why. Until…

Meli, a practitioner of the arts of plant and animal creation, has a dream in which she is holding a baby, something no one in Aetheria has heard of before. Drawn by a powerful urge to find the truth behind her vision, she recruits Ariden, an unsociable vagabond and legendary fighter, and Karis, an aged airship engineer with the appearance of a teen girl, to help her make a perilous journey across the ocean.

What follows thereafter is an epic adventure through a world of immortals, ancient gods, giant monsters, murderous plants, gladiatorial pankration, airship battles, and general drama/mayhem.

If that sounds like something you might enjoy, head over to the book page for links to purchase or download a sample.

Secondly, my usual gentle reminder: adding books to your shelves on Goodreads, rating them and especially leaving reviews on Amazon is immensely helpful for me (and every other author).

Finally, please note that this book should not be confused with ANKARAN IMMERSION, which is coming out later this year from Dragon Moon Press. Much more will be forthcoming on that, so watch for more news later this year.

The second of what is shaping to be an annual Star Wars movie release under the new Disney regime is in the wild, and from what I’ve seen the fan and critical consensus is mostly positive. Well, I saw the movie Friday morning, and while I didn’t think it was terrible by any means, I do have some comments on what are (to me) some obvious failings.

Hello! Since I have a habit of burying the lede, I’ll just come right out and say it: I’ve signed a contract with Dragon Moon Press to publish my next novel.

Of course I’m overjoyed at this development. Some of the reasons should be obvious: lots of time invested (years!), big milestone, excited by the opportunity for people to see my work, and so on. But I’m also jazzed to be working with Dragon Moon in particular. They’ve in business as a small press since 1993, which by itself is fairly astonishing. Their covers look fantastic. And most importantly, though every Author is different, from the discussions we’ve had I feel they’re a great fit for me and my current goals.

As for the book itself, you can read a bit about the plot and the process of writing it in my post-mortem here. And if you want more…well, you’ll have to wait. This process will in all likelihood not be speedy, but I’m happy to document what I can along the way for those who are interested (I mean, it would interest me, so there must be someone else out there). There will be plenty of time later to get into more detailed marketing stuff, title, cover reveal, sample and so on. For now, I’m simply giving a heads up that good things are on the way. And in the meantime, I have more writing to do….

That Which is Known is a five-minute, weekly podcast by author Michael Coorlim, in which he presents interesting facts on topics of research relevant to what he’s writing. Recently he put out an open call for others to produce guest episodes with the same format, and I volunteered to record one on the topic of alternate universes, with a tie-in of course to my work on the Reintegrators.

The episode is up now at the TWIK site (and on iTunes and what-have-you):

A small, blog-only “fun fact”: I was familiar with the many-worlds interpretation of Q.M. when I started writing the Reintegrators, but the “ultimate ensemble” idea (which Kevin explains to Teddy in chapter 5, though he doesn’t name it as such) was something I came up on my own, and that in turn led to the genesis of the entire book. It wasn’t until later that I found out about Dr. Tegmark’s work, and was quite pleased that an air of authenticity had thus been laid over the whole thing ;P.

Anyway, check out the podcast if you want to hear my sultry radio voice. I also recommend Mr. Coorlim’s fiction for fans of steampunk mysteries. I’m considering doing more stuff like this in the future, so if you’d like to see more, let me know in the usual places.

The time has come again for self-reflection. After a year of work (which includes various breaks for revising Aetheria’s Daemon more than once, writing shorts, and various other things), this month I completed the first draft of my third novel (title still pending; I’ve probably mentioned the working title on this blog before if you’re curious enough to dig into it, but no one seems to like it so it’s stuck in limbo at the moment).

The following is a compilation of ideas I’ve had recently about how to write effective opening scenes for a novel or short story. The usual caveats apply: I’m an idiot, this is not a secret formula, a great writer can make anything work, etc. Use, ignore or argue with at your leisure.

Ah, big science fiction conventions. So exciting, so exhausting, overflowing with possibility and inevitable disappointment. Dragon Con 2014 is over, I’ve had a post-trip nap and several showers, and the feelings I’m left with are…mixed…